... and Baby Makes Two Page 14

  “Is this okay?” he asked. She didn't answer. She took in all the body heat. And there was that good smell again. His face was just above hers. Inches away. She couldn't form thoughts as words, just smoky jumbles. If she turned and looked at him now, they would kiss. She knew it.

  So instead she said, “I'm adopting a baby” She wanted to take herself into another room and ask herself why she just blurted that out. If only she could. He was stunned into letting go of her. He sat up. Jane felt a chill.

  “Your mother never told me.”

  “She never knew. I never got to tell her. I mean, I never had a chance to.” This was a lousy time to tell a lie. “I never told her. And I didn't know she was going to die like that. I only made the decision after. Right after.”

  He looked like he was running through flash cards in his head, considering twenty other things to say before he said, “Congratulations. I was adopted,” he added.

  She knew that. He had told her before.

  “You knew that. I told you before, didn't I? My wife and I, when we got married, we said that we were going to adopt someday. Only we're never in the same time zone for very long.”

  “That'll change.” Jane sounded a bit smug. “The old biological clock will beep really loud one day, and she'll be pushing for a baby, rearranging both your lives around it. You'll see.” Jane was afraid that she sounded like someone on Fox News.

  “I don't know about that. Did I tell you that she's fifteen years older than me? Yeah. The biological clock has come and gone. I don't think it's going to happen.”

  What? Peter and Jane were about the same age, give or take, so that made his wife, what, do the math in your head, fifteen years older.

  Jane could only say, “Oh. Kay”

  “We haven't talked about it for a long time. The last time I brought it up, she said, Why would we mess up our lives with a kid? We have a great life together.’ And then we had this fight, and then she went back to L.A. She likes it out there.” Jane was trying not to stare at him as he said these things.

  “My mom said you wanted to have kids” was the best Jane could do.

  “Did I tell her that?”

  “You didn't need to. That was my mom. She knew when I snuck in late, even though I never told her. She knew stuff.”

  …

  Teresa and Karen were immersed in the listservs, which left Jane feeling a bit out of the loop. Jane clicked on the list and found a flame war in progress. It started when a pair of proud parents-to-be announced that they had stitched a sampler for their daughter-to-be. They could hardly wait until she was in their arms enjoying the beautiful stitchery Yes, this sampler is for you, Elvista Priscilla. They had contemplated naming her Lisa Marie, but they felt that this would be intruding on the King's territory. And Elvista might mean something pretty like “The View,” which was a favorite program. So, win-win, right?

  No one objected to the hideous moniker. A few people objected to naming a child in advance because it was bad luck, incurring the wrath of the Naming Gods or something. But there was a flood of objections over the absence of anything Chinese in Elvista Priscilla's new name.

  It started when one person posted, “What about her Chinese name? Are you going to keep it?” No, they weren't keeping her Chinese name. It had never occurred to them to do so. How cold! How insensitive! Obviously, the child will grow up with no sense of her Chinese heritage. Elvista will have no contact with any culture, Chinese or otherwise, will she? Hey this is America, where you can give your child any ugly name you want. Chinese names are optional. On and on it went. A Flame War.

  Jane was so absorbed in watching the new postings come in she nearly missed a meeting. It was like Betty and her soap operas, but these faceless people (who couldn't spell-check) were real. Elvista's mother-to-be wrote:

  My hands are shaking so bad while I type this I can hardly type this. You people are so mean to dash a mothers heart when she has stiched her fingers to the bone for her little girl in China who she loves already and wants to go get her right now and bring her home where she belongs and love her forever and be her Mom.

  Just for the record and not to make any of you happy I am quiting this list. I don't need this and who does. I hope your not in China when I am their because I don't want to see any of you ever in person because that would be to much for me and my family and we are all about love unlike you. Godbye forever to you all.

  Jane felt guilty about giggling before.

  Finally, a moderator interrupted the drama. There would be no more messages about names, Chinese or otherwise. There would be no more judgments about anybody's choice of name for their daughter.

  The messages slowed for a while, then someone started a faux-war, questioning whether the song is “Itsy Bitsy Spider” or “Teensy Weensy Spider.” A few souls played along, and the rage subsided.

  Karen and Teresa had been following the online jihad and drew their own conclusions. Teresa vowed never to post anything resembling personal information to the list. Karen purchased copies of a baby-naming book, Name Your Child's Destiny, for all three women. And all three quietly decided to keep some form of Chinese name for their daughters.

  Jane kept Peter informed of the ongoing drama as they walked to dinner.

  “If I ever had a kid, I would name it after my parents,” he said. “None of these trendy, made-up names for me. I like the idea of honoring my folks and making that connection. That's important. I was named for my uncle who died in Korea. I'm proud to have his name.”

  Jane actually, physically bit her tongue. Why was he married to someone so far away? Why wasn't he going to have children? Didn't he see how much he wanted to be a dad?

  Jane looked peculiar with her tongue between her teeth. Most people do.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Oh. Yes. It's just—names. What a responsibility!”

  They were walking quickly. The leaves danced around them, along with newspapers and other litter.

  “So, Peter? You're really never going to have children?” Maybe she was free to ask this while they were moving.

  “No. I guess I'm not going to. I'll be okay though. Nobody gets everything.”

  “But what about your parents? Don't they want grandchildren?”

  Jane had ventured into a very sensitive area for Peter. She was half expecting a big “none of your business,” but Peter was too kind to say such a thing. And oh, yes, his parents wanted lots of grandchildren. They were wary when he brought home his older girlfriend, and tense when he married her, but always confident that they would soon be spoiling their son's babies.

  “They wanted grandchildren, sure,” he said. “But nobody gets everything.”

  “You said that before.”

  “Sorry. But it's true. Everyone needs to know it. And I understand why my parents were upset. I wasn't completely thrilled, either. But then they started prying into my marriage. They don't understand how much I really do love her. And need her. She's my wife, and that's never going to change. I got really mad at them, actually. I told them that this is my marriage and it's none of their business. They got the message.”

  So did Jane. She got that this speech was aimed at her—and she even doubted that he said any of this stuff to his own mother and father. And with that, she set up a rule for herself: She must not comment on his marriage. Instead, she said, “Names. What a responsibility” and gracelessly changed the subject. “Want to see the new Alec Baldwin movie next week? I hear he lost weight.”

  “Can't. Biancas coming out here for the holidays, and we'll be staying out at my parents’. We really can't stay in the city together.

  That studio is way too cozy for an old married couple, you know what I mean? Hey. You're visiting your dad for Christmas, right? Maybe we'll see you out there. Wouldn't that be great?”

  Jane kept a fake smile stapled to her face as she said, “Yeah. That would be great.”

  She worried that her eyes betrayed her panic. She sna
pped her holiday plans into place: “But we probably won't see each other. Because I'm leaving. Early. I'm just going to be out there for a little while. And then I'm coming back to the city. So. Ya know …”

  “Got it,” said Peter. “We won't see you at Christmas.”

  Was he hurt? Was he making a promise to Jane? Was he actually understanding that Jane would require advanced pharmaceuticals if she had to tolerate a visit with Peter and his wife? Did it matter? She had succeeded in preventing the visit. Done.

  …

  Jane's favorite name story was about the woman on the list who named her biological son Trey, inexplicably forgetting that his last name was Lohr. Trey Lohr was one miserable kid on the playground. Then there were the people proposing traditional names, Mary Cathy, and a lot of Juliets. Then there were the people proposing names like Champagne and Turquoise. These girls were destined to join Trey Lohr on the playground as Champ and Turkey. Maybe it was Peter's influence, but Jane knew that she couldn't escape her daughter's name. It was settled. It would be Elizabeth. For Betty.

  But not Betty. She wasn't going to call her Betty, oh, no. She was going to call her Elizabeth. Which, okay might be too long for a tiny child to say, and that's exactly how little girls end up being called Betty or Bitty. Or Beth. She could call her Beth. This faraway little girl, who seemed like a fantasy most of the time, took a giant step toward reality the moment Jane said the name Beth out loud. She would be Beth Chinese-middle-name-extracted-from-the-baby's-name-at-the-orphanage Howe. Beth.

  …

  The Chinamoms were a growing group. Every Monday, they gathered at the Melting Pot, a Midtown restaurant that allowed everyone an easy commute. On this particular Monday, they would say a special farewell to Megan, who was about to travel to China. The first of their number to do so. She would be home just in time for Christmas. Baby's First Christmas. Pangs all around.

  A new woman, Arlene, sat quietly at the end of the table. In fact, she sat silently. It was hard to sit next to her and have a conversation. She was small, with long dark hair, an oak complexion, and a tiny mouth. Charm was still working on her dossier. She described every detail of her process. Jane felt almost sentimental. Was her paper chase really so long ago? Greta completed hers two weeks after Jane.

  “Barbara says that we might travel together!” Greta exclaimed. “We should hang out and everything. I'm thinking of bringing my parents and my niece and my brother with me to China. What about you? Who are you bringing? Are you going to move? You can't have a baby in a walk-up. What if you fall and break her head? How would you live with yourself? I'm getting the hepatitis vaccinations. Are you? You should. I mean, you could lose your liver if you don't. You want my fries? I'm trying to do Atkins, and I can't have this on my plate.”

  Greta kept talking. And talking. Jane gripped Teresa's arm. She didn't want to travel with Greta, please God. Post-punk Megan, Mom-of-the-Moment, entered and you could see the hurricane swirling around her. She was here, there, and in China all at once. She was packing. She was preparing. She was terrified. She was leaving in nineteen hours.

  “Take my advice.” It felt like a deathbed pronouncement. “Don't wait, like I did.” The advice sounded familiar. “I don't know if I'm going to make it to the plane tomorrow.”

  “What do you need?” Teresa asked. She sounded calm and smart.

  Megan needed help. She needed to track down medications that, so far, two drugstores didn't have. She needed to start packing some clothes. She needed to make copies of her dossier. She needed to have some food stocked in the refrigerator for when they came home. She needed different nipples for her bottles. She needed a new camera battery for the most important event of her life. She needed the changing table pad replaced and the whole table cleaned and the folding part kept falling off and was that dangerous? Was it? Oh, and she needed to pack some clothes. Did she mention that?

  Teresa solicited volunteers, and even silent Arlene managed to raise her hand. No dinner could ever be as exciting as finding the right nipples for Megan. In a matter of hours, everything was complete. Except for the changing table, which required a little more work. The group settled into Megan's apartment while Jane repaired the changing table.

  “Hand-me-downs suck,” Megan pronounced.

  “This is going to be as good as new.” Jane tried not to grunt as she tightened the bolt.

  Everyone sat on the floor, except for Teresa. They edited Megan's packing and promised hours of babysitting. By the time they left, Megan was physically and logistically ready for China. You can imagine the other levels of readiness that she needed. To Jane, those all read as fuzzy static. Megan would return to this room in two weeks, with her daughter. They left Megan, post-punk adoptive mom, to finish her other levels of readiness.

  They found a diner and sipped coffee and tea. They talked about the buzz of Megan's excitement. Teresa wondered aloud what the Chinese would think of Megan's pink highlights. Out of nowhere, Jane told them all about Peter and his faraway wife and their almost-kiss. More blurting. She was becoming such a blurter.

  Teresa felt certain that he was not really married, and therefore even more despicable. Karen worried about Jane's karma and ex- plored the possibility of a relationship between Jane and Peter in some previous lifetime that had echoed in this one.

  Karen justified her otherworldly approach. “It's possible. It's the only explanation I can find for Artie, my last boyfriend. He was a relentless, brooding jerk.” But Jane found no tangible help there. She still wanted Peter. She wanted him so badly.

  “Push him,” Teresa advised. “He wants to leave her and go to you—if she exists, that is. So give him a push. Can't you see it? He's practically begging you to push him. Push him!”

  These women were big on advice. Karen advised Jane to give Peter a set of time boundaries. This sounded like a soft way to say “deadline” or “ultimatum,” and Jane shied away from both. And then Arlene spoke, at last. Hers was the advice that got under Jane's skin and stayed there.

  “You want him. You can't have him. Walk away”

  Chapter Nine

  No one got good Christmas bonuses, and Jane had the privilege of telling everyone precisely how little they were getting. Hers was slashed, beaten, and barely breathing. The London acquisition had strained the firm's resources, and everyone had to share the burden. But Jane got a card from Barbara. It contained an official warning, on behalf of Founding Mothers, stating that this would be the last holiday season where she could tear up the town. Next year, life would be unrecognizable. Next year, she would celebrate Christmas with her baby.

  Jane overspent, especially on her dad. No one in the world was going to have a tougher Christmas than Howard. Betty had always loved the holidays and found ways to gild lilies and then add lights to them. Jane tried her best to re-create her mother's heavy touch in decorating.

  “Do you want me to put the singing snowman on the porch or next to Rudolph?” This was one of many questions she tried to frame seriously. He kept the cocoa coming, and she kept putting up lights, holly, and crèches. But no amount of staple-gunning could make it look like Betty was still there.

  On Christmas Day, Kevin, Neil, and their wives and their kids seriously outnumbered Jane. But she had the Christ Child on her side. The original one, not the one from her neighborhood. They knew they would lose valuable moral high ground if they said anything harsh to Jane today. So they said nothing. This was just like having People around. You didn't talk about things in front of Christmas.

  The children were bigger and louder. They were more thoroughly inducted into pop culture than ever before. They quoted prime time and MTV. Jane, aka Margaret Mead, studied their aggressive behavior. She saw Dylan slinking off to call his girlfriend. She saw the little ones topple their parents’ ability to say no. Jane promised herself that her child would be more pure of heart, and she was going to disconnect her cable TV immediately.

  Kitty and Linda managed to re-create Betty's Christmas
dinner perfectly, and anyone with good sense would have to wonder why. Betty openly despised cooking. For years, she had been inventing the fully microwavable Christmas. She invested in an industrial-size microwave oven, for maximum efficiency. It was her moment of triumph when the turkey emerged from his plastic tray, ready to serve.

  “No one can tell the difference!” was her battle cry.

  Howard always made appropriate mm-mm-mm noises, and the family followed suit. Kitty and Linda always had hot dogs or Lunchables for the little ones. The first Christmas without Betty would be no different. Kitty sat in Betty's seat, so as not to draw attention to her absence.

  After dinner, the adults exchanged presents while the children fought over which DVD to watch first. Kevin, Neil, Kitty, and Linda had pooled their money to buy Howard a watch. It was a classic gold pocket watch, engraved “from your loving children.”

  Jane's blood ran backward. Your loving children? We left out the un-loving children, Jane and Sheila, because, hey, they don't love you. Jane said nothing. You can't say anything in front of Christmas, remember.

  Jane's gift was a collection of PBS DVDs on history topics that

  Howard loved: the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War I, World War II. Wars in a digital format. It looked stupid and shallow next to the gold watch from the loving children. But Howard was no fool. He crowed with excitement over his gifts from Jane. He put Sheila's gift under the tree for later. Much later.

  Jane needed to tell Howard about the baby because, from an adoption point of view, she was beginning to show. She looked for an opportunity to get Howard alone. On Christmas. With the whole family around. It wasn't easy.

  Howard, Jane, and the Loving Children all endured a constant stream of visitors. Everyone who was anyone in northern New Jersey wanted to check on newly widowed Howard on his first Christmas without Betty. By midafternoon, Howard had received a year's supply of holiday cookies and a stack of fruitcakes. Some guests talked about Betty, some talked around her. But every guest seemed to study Howard for a sign of sadness that they could heal with their baked goods. Howard twinkled good-naturedly and allayed all fears and worries.